Analysis of medical jargon: The RECIT system

Medical language constitutes a large subset of human language. However, it presents special features which have to be taken into consideration for natural language analysis. We have observed that natural language texts dealing with a specific medical area (especially discharge summaries and reports) share a common vocabulary and common habits of word usage. Facing these specificities, we describe in this paper an original system called RECIT, designed for medical text analysis and understanding. In particular, we discuss the principles which guide the analysis of medical jargon using semantic considerations, coupled with syntactic information when needed. As a result of the flexibility of the system, a medical application developed in the context of the AIM project HELIOS-2 is presented.